NY Times: Happy Father's Day, Sperm Donor

The New York Times marked Father’s Day last Sunday in its own special way -- here’s the front-page tease to a 4,000-word story by N.R. Kleinfeld: “In Brooklyn, a single mother, her son, her sperm donor and his lover are helping to redefine the concept of the American family.”

At Opinion Journal, James Taranto was bothered by the Times's blithe unconcern for the child’s privacy in its rush to celebrate an alternative family lifestyle. Under the cutting headlines “Happy Donor's Day! The New York Times celebrates fatherhood by cruelly invading a 3-year-old's privacy,” he wrote:

Of course, the "nontraditional" nature of G.'s family is part of what makes the story appealing to the Times. Its editors, writers and readers enjoy feeling superior to those they imagine are judgmental rubes who are troubled by what the paper calls "the hiccupping fluidity of the family in the modern world" and who probably hate gays too....

Reacting to disparaging remarks made by the boys biological father, Taranto pointed out: “...as soon as G. can punch his name and his parents' names into Google, he will be able to read the cruel things his father said about him when he was 3. So, by the way, will his school friends--and enemies. That's why we left the names out of this column. We don't want him to find out from us...Didn't any of this occur to reporter N.R. Kleinfeld or the Times's editors? Or are they so enamored of "alternative family structures" that an actual child who has to live with the consequences is in their minds a mere abstraction?

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